Does Access to Antenatal Care Lead to Better Birth Outcomes? a Study from Rural Bihar, India

Anand, Gautam; Anand, Gautam

India has consistently struggled to improve access to basic health services including antenatal care (ANC) as well as birth outcomes. Bihar, one of the poorest states of India with more than 106 million population, further lags behind. The policy framework under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), launched in 2005, puts a large emphasis on improving uptake of ANC services which also include counselling services on best practices for pregnant women, especially in rural areas by organizing monthly medical camps and by incentivizing Community Health Workers’ efforts to bring pregnant women to these camps. However, ANC services being provided at public health facilities are often of poor quality.

I use the rural Bihar household data from National Family Health Survey, 2015-16, which recorded 15,037 live births between 2010 and 2015 and captured information regarding socio-economic characteristics of household, health behavior, usage of health services, access to health workers as well as birth experiences and health outcome for newborns and mothers. I specifically answer the question that does access to ANC services lead to better birth experience and health outcomes? I use the place of delivery and weight at birth as indicators of better birth experience and outcome. Preliminary findings of the study suggest that access to ANC does lead to improvement in uptake of safer birth practices however it does not significantly improve the birth outcome of newborns, which is still better explained by socio-economic variables.

Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel Paper: Does Access to Antenatal Care Lead to Better Birth Outcomes? a Study from Rural Bihar, India

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